


That High Of a Price

by judyhard1ng



Category: Star Trek: The Next Generation
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - World War II, Angst, Blood and Gore, Gore, Heavy Angst, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-10
Updated: 2020-10-10
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:34:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26936740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/judyhard1ng/pseuds/judyhard1ng
Summary: As Deanna desperately tried to the grip the dirt of the walls, she heard a whistle and then the loudest sound she had ever heard in her life. She closed her eyes, feeling her ears beginning to bleed as she was lifted off the ground, blacking out as she slammed hard into the ground.-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-xIn this historical AU, the crew are mostly on the Maginot line in France, trying to stave off the Germans in World War 2. This takes place during the Battle of France, and the timeline and locations as well as names of non-Trek characters are accurate. However, the French was translated with Google so it might be off a little. Sorry!For Trektober Day 10-Historical AU
Comments: 1
Kudos: 8
Collections: Trektober 2020





	That High Of a Price

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cipherfresh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cipherfresh/gifts).



> hey y'all! i don't know why i went so dark with this one, but you know how war is. i legit just asked my little brother and he was basically an encyclopedia of facts about these battles. what a nerd :P make sure to wear your mask and have a snack!
> 
> <3 heath

June 6, 1940

Commandant Picard strolled back and forth behind the wall of wires that snaked through the forest on the Maginot line. Weygard had left a measly 17 divisions behind in favor of shoring up the new front by the Somme. Belgium and the Netherlands had fallen, the British were forced out into the sea, and the Allied forces overall were not doing well. 

Picard lit a cigarette and continued to walk to the top of a small hill, looking out at the meandering fields of France. He had a bad feeling about this. For starters, it was raining, the light rain that doesn’t bother a person but fills the trenches with mud too quickly. He was concerned that the morale was dwindling too fast.

His radio operator, a man named LaForge who the Americans had sent from London, had been crucial in their success as of yet. His advanced radio, DA1A, had been able to reach Weygard in Paris on good nights and the other troops along the Somme occasionally, with some reach to intercept the Germans.

He inhaled deeply, the smoke dissipating as small drops of rain fell through it. His mind wandered to ways to increase morale. They could have a dance--Geordi could surely intercept some of the music channels from the Belgians. He could ask Nurse Howard. The fiery haired woman could perform the fastest bullet removal he had ever seen, and she had a laugh like pure gold. He had been too scared to ask her, self conscious about his clipped English and his rather short stature. He may as well try.

He gazed at the horizon, his mind drifting to some possibilities of what would happen in the upcoming weeks. There was no word on the Germans. There hadn’t been since the fall of the Dutch.

He heard heavy footsteps and turned to see a black soldier dressed in the brown fatigues of the Americans. Their armies had mixed somehow after a plane carrying soldiers from London to Stalingrad had crashed under German fire. The survivors had escaped, although not unscathed. The man heading for him now had nasty, crinkled skin under his left eye that made it clear he had been severely burned. Picard noticed that he had a slight limp, but he was scowling as if he was trying to make it disappear.

Picard stubbed his cigarette out on the damp tree bark next to him and stood up a little straighter. The man approached him and said, “Commandant, your presence is required in the bunker.”

Picard said, “Thank you...what eez your name?” His English had improved over the years, but his accent clipped his words in some places still. 

The soldier said, “Worf.” Picard looked at him, but the man said nothing more. He sighed and began to walk back towards the bunker, hearing Worf fall into step next him. 

He looked up at the huge man and said, “So, Werf, where are you from?”    
  


Worf glanced at him and said, “America.” 

Picard chuckled to himself and said, “Werf, I know more aboot the States.” 

Worf grumbled something to himself and said, “New Hampshire.” 

Picard nodded and said, “And where...you fight?”

Worf said, “I did not fight. I was supposed to be a supplier to the defenses from London and vice versa. I was hastily drafted when our plane lost most of the soldiers.” Indeed, Picard noticed that his brown coat was too big for him, swamping his arms and falling almost to his knees. 

“I am sorry.” Worf nodded and turned to look at the barbed wire lines, and Picard knew that the conversation had ended.

The two approached the bunker, and Worf saluted as he veered off around the building, presumably to the training yard. Picard entered the bunker, his boots echoing on the concrete as he passed the magazines and the entrances to the operations for the anti tank guns. After a few turns he was in the main control room.

Everyone turned and saluted him and he nodded, the bustle of the room returning. He was wondering why he had been called in when LaForge stood, saying, “ Commandant, nous avons un mot de l'Aisne et de Pérrone. Les Allemands se déplacent en formation de tenailles. Ils viennent pour Paris.” 

Picard was eternally grateful that LaForge could speak French. It was kind of amazing that Geordi could speak German, French, English, and Spanish. He had apparently assisted the Americans when they had almost violated Spain’s efforts for neutrality. But the news hit him like a truck and got him over his renowned admiration.

He said, “Paris? Il y a quarante-sept divisions à Weygard. Com ment peuvent-ils rejoindre Paris?”

“ Le blitzkrieg. Ils ont des bombardiers en piqué, et ils ont déjà percé les routes de Rouen.” LaForge’s eyes were wide, and Picard realized that he was playing with the silver dollar that he always ran through his fingers when he was nervous.

He then realized what was going on. If the Germans managed to cross the Aisne, they would use the Langres Plateau to cut them off from Paris. They would be taken prisoner or killed, trapped between Italy and the Germans. If they attacked the Germans from behind on the Langres Plateau, they could damage the forces entering Paris and the French Army might be able to hold them off.

He swallowed. “LaForge, à quelle distance sont-ils de l'Aisne?” LaForge shrugged. “Trouver,” Picard snapped. He stalked over to the map and looked at the men arranging the figures, mostly Americans. He cleared his throat and said, “The Germans have broken to Rouen.” He indicated this on the map and continued, “To take Paris, they need...all sides. They will cross the Aisne.”

“The retreating soldiers estimate about three days!” LaForge called out.

Picard nodded and said, “Three days. They will cut us off from Paris. We must attack from behind.” The soldiers nodded and he said, “Prepare the trenches.” The soldiers dispersed, and he made his way down a flight of stairs, past the main magazine, through the main gallery, past the hospital, and down to the barracks. He walked up and down the hallway, yelling at the troops to wake up, to report to their assigned commander or sergeant.

In her bed, Deanna “Derek” Troi rubbed her eyes. “Come on man, let’s go,” one of her fellow soldiers said, punching her lightly in the shoulder as he headed out the door. Deanna yawned and dragged herself off her bunk, shrugging her coat on quickly before any of the men could see the outline of her breasts through her undershirt.

Back home in America, Deanna had been desperate. Her mother, ever paranoid, had insisted on traveling away from the west coast because she was convinced that the reports that Japan had joined the war were true. She had left Deanna alone in California with a house that was too big for her and no one to call a friend. With all the extra time on her hands, she started to train. Long runs through the hills as early in the morning as she could, makeshift weights she would lift at home.

The war was on everyone’s mind, and Deanna felt swallowed by it. At this point, she decided that she couldn’t do anything more to be seen than to try and protect her country. She knew as a woman she couldn’t join, and when she returned from the war she’d be ostracized and shamed. 

But she needed somewhere to go, somewhere to take out her anger. So she registered under the name Derek Troi, and she was about to be shipped to Russia from London when her plane crashed. They managed to find the Maginot line and the French took them in. They knew, however, that they had slightly overstayed their welcome. 

They were noisy, boisterous, they played cards into the late hours of the night and smoked in crowded hallways. Most of them spoke minimal to no French, and not enough of the survivors were senior officers, leading to some being grouped into French divisions. But it was war, and war was messy. Deanna finished putting her uniform on and pulled her hand through her short, matted black curls.

She fell into line with the crowd leaving the bunker and muttered to the man next to her, “What is this?” 

The man said back, “Apparently Paris is the German’s goal. Picard thinks we have to shore up in case they surround the city.” Deanna nodded, scratching her chin and following the directions to the magazine. The crowded hallways reeked of dirt and sweat, but by now Deanna had found it comforting. The smell of burning flesh, the tang and iron of blood, and the acid sting of vomit that had followed her for weeks after they crashed were some of the worst smells she could remember encountering.

Once in the magazine, she was assigned to extending the barbed wire fence as far as they could in one day. She hoisted the roll of wire over her shoulder carefully, her friend Ro taking the other shoulder. Short and thin, people marveled how Ro had even gotten into the army. His ear had a hole like it had been pierced and he had nose scars from a rifle butt to the face. But he was tough, and Deanna admired his brazen command abilities. The two tramped into the woods in relative silence.

When they got to the end of the barbed wire fence, the other men with them started putting up the wood parts of the barricade, talking and laughing among themselves. Ro said, “When do you think it’ll be over?” It had only been a year, and Deanna shrugged.

Ro spat on the ground and said, “Those damn Germans. If Chamberlain hadn’t fucked up in tea land, maybe we wouldn’t be here. If the Germans find out we’re here, they’ll declare war on the United States as well.”

Deanna muttered, “They can’t bring the fight that far overseas. Britain’s air defense is too strong.”

Ro wound the wire around the wooden post and said, “I’ve heard Japan is stirring. There are some fascist allies there.”    
  


Deanna snorted. “Yeah? Where did you hear that?” Ro spit again, the liquid brown tinged from the chewing tobacco in his mouth.

“LaForge tells me things.”

Deanna laughed even louder, straining her throat to make the laugh sound deeper. “You think because you and LaForge reached Moscow one time that you’re suddenly in the loop?” Ro gave her the side eye and spat again, the spit mixing with fresh mud from the rain.

Deanna chuckled and said, “Don’t shoot the messenger Ro. The other guys are just jealous that someone as skinny as you can beat them in arm wrestling  _ and  _ cards.”

“I am not that skinny!” Ro said indignantly, flexing his arm. Deanna raised her eyebrows and Ro said, “Don’t mess with me, Derek.” He gave Deanna a playful shove, spattering mud on his boots.

Deanna nudged him back, and the two continued their work late into the dusk.

June 9, 1940

Beverly Howard hadn’t expected moving to London to land her here. She had flown off to England to pursue Jack Crusher, a suave tailor that had been promoting the possibility of a British suit store in the States. They had fallen fast, hard, and messy, and then Jack had business back home.

After a few months of going stir-crazy, Beverly had decided to follow. Her medicinal training had made her very valuable when the war started three years later. She had been drafted as a nurse rather quickly, and after two months solid of crying after every patient, the days of the war had steeled her. She was soon known as the Bullet Bunny, hopping between patients and removing bullets at lightning speed with minimal damage to the patient.

The coastline of Britain had been under heavy fire when she discovered that she and Jack were going to have a child. She was upset and ashamed to be having a child out of wedlock, but she decided to tell Jack anyway. He had stormed out on her and demanded he be on the next ship to the French lines. Unfortunately, his ship was bombed by German soldiers mere hours later.

Ever since then she had been living with the guilt of killing Jack somehow. It was too easy in a war like this one to blame everyone's death on yourself.  _ If only I had done this. If only I hadn’t done that. _ Beverly, being alone with her baby in flagging Britain, managed to secure passage to Paris for Jack’s memorial. The attack on his ship had been so sudden, and it was back when they still had time for memorials.

Some lying had convinced a hospital that she and Jack were indeed married, and she must have left her ring in the hospital by accident. She gave birth to a healthy boy that she named Wesley after Jack’s ship. She had been receiving some romantic interest from a man named William who lived around the corner in Paris.

She did not return his affections and spoke very abrasive French, but he doted on Wesley like a father and when she had healed from the pregnancy, he was willing to take care of the boy while she was called to the defenses on the German side. 

Every day, she thought of Will and how grateful she was to find a man who was a friend and a foster father. She carried a picture of Jack in her apron pocket and wore a watch that Will had made to remind her of the two men who had basically saved her life.

But as she listened to the shaking and rattling of the bombs and guns mixed with wailing sirens above the bunker, she wasn’t so sure. This was even heavier than the British coast. The lightbulbs shook and rattled, and three had broken already. Word from the many wounded soldiers on the beds in front of her were that the Germans had dive-bombers, flying low and slinging bombs into the trenches, sometimes even crashing whole planes.

Her red hair was pulled from her face and she had her glasses on, darting between the beds again like she used to. Another man was wheeled into the infirmary, passed out. His leg was clearly broken, the white bone catching the light of the bulbs while the flesh around it oozed blood and soaked his brown pants. He also had a coil of barbed wire lancing his stomach, the metal twisted into his flesh and coating the floor with blood.

~~~~~~

Three hours earlier, Deanna and Ro had been firing on the German soldiers, their ears assailed from both sides as their anti-tank guns faced off against the German tanks. Deanna was a good shot, having used to hunt with a shotgun in the desert back home. She had shot down multiple soldiers when she heard a rumbling, buzzing sound.

She gripped Ro’s arm. “What is that?” She yelled over the din as a man next to them fell back, bullet holes riddling his stomach.

Ro spat more tobacco on the ground and yelled, “Sounds like a plane.” Deanna nodded in agreement, but gazing at the sky, she couldn’t see anything. The buzzing grew even louder, and some of the soldiers in the trench stopping to look around. Ro gasped, “Oh my Lord.”

Deanna turned around and saw what he was seeing. Sweeping low, almost touching the roof of a bunker, was a grey Stuka. Deanna winced as the plane turned on blaring, screeching sirens as it continued to fly closer. She realized that it was coming for the trench and murmured, “Fuck.” The German dive-bomber closed in as the soldiers began to run, desperately trying to climb up the walls of the trench and scatter into the fields.

As Deanna desperately tried to the grip the dirt of the walls, she heard a whistle and then the loudest sound she had ever heard in her life. She closed her eyes, feeling her ears beginning to bleed as she was lifted off the ground, blacking out as she slammed hard into the ground.

She came to a few hours later, the fire still being exchanged. She noticed that some of the trees were on fire, the smoky smell filling her nose as she noticed two fallen tanks that had caused the blaze. She shifted to see where she was and screamed as pain shot up her leg like she had been sawed open. Black spots danced in front of her eyes and she closed them, breathing heavily as the pain subsided only slightly. 

She raised her head and looked down, gagging at what she saw. Her femur was sticking out of her pants, the fabric around the rupture sticking to the exposed bloody flesh that had also been torn apart. She then noticed the coil of barbed wire lanced into her side, and she moaned in pain as another breath sucked her stomach in, yanking the sharp metal deeper into her side.

She then noticed that she was lying on something soft, and she craned her head to see someone’s legs sticking out from behind her. She scooched backwards and screamed loudly as her broken leg dragged on the grass, pain consuming her entire leg and setting it on fire as she moved slowly, her throat hoarse from screaming and crying.

She finally moved off the body and fell backwards, lying flat on her back and staring at the planes above her, and the soldiers near her. She could see that she was near a completely wrecked cesspool of wood, mud, flesh, and guns, and realized that she hadn’t been thrown very far from the trench where the bomb hit.

She realized that Ro was most likely in that cesspool, and she let a few tears of sadness mix in with the fast flowing, hot tears of pain. She twisted her head slightly to see the body she had landed on. He was black, with medium length black hair. She reached over and grasped his dog tags, reading the name **_Worf._** She dropped them and stared at the battle around her. 

She hadn’t ever considered that she would die. She knew that the war was dangerous, but she figured out of the hundreds of men on the field, she had a slim chance. She had gone to let out her anger, to take revenge on the world for ignoring her, and look where that got her. Dying in a field, no one at home knowing where she was, her dog tags branding her as Derek until she was buried in the ground. She swallowed, the sound of the war around her fading to a slight buzzing as her vision started to grow black.  _ I’m so sorry, Mom. _

Beverly assessed the man in front of her. His dog tags read  **_Derek Troi_ ** , and he had a shag of curly black hair. Seeing as he was unconscious, she began to remove the wire, drawing it out slowly. She grabbed a bandage roll and began to remove the man’s jacket, discarding it on the ground. She was wrapping the bandages around his abdomen when she felt a lump on his chest. She frowned and examined it closer. It was large and circular, and she ran her hand around it before noticing another one. Her face paled.  _ This is a woman.  _ She wasn’t sure what to do, but before she could continue to move, the radio operator appeared in the doorway.

“Ladies! You need to get out of here, now! Vous devez sortir d’ici!” The women stared at him in shock and Beverly stepped forward. 

“We have patients here, we can’t just leave them-”

LaForge cut her off. “All the nurses are being evacuated. The Commandant knows we’re going down. The nurses everywhere are short staffed. If we can sneak you into Switzerland, we can get you back to where you’re needed.” As he continued to repeat the words in French for the rest of the nurses, Beverly finished the unspoken end of his sentence.  _ And hide you from the Germans. _ If the Germans found out that America had snuck soldiers and nurses into the war through Britain, they would declare war against the States.

Beverly glanced back at the woman on her table. She admired any woman who had the guts to sacrifice herself in the war that only took men to represent bravery. She unfastened the watch around her wrist and clasped it around the woman’s before following her fellow nurses out the back of the bunker.

They were rushing towards a truck when Beverly heard a loud buzzing and the sirens she had been hearing all day.  _ The dive-bombers. _ Fear filled her heart and she ran faster, hiking up her white dress as the nurses fled towards the safety of the truck. The sirens and buzzing got even louder, and Beverly turned back to look at the plane. A whistling noise came from above them, and she glimpsed something moving before it all went black.

June 14, 1940

Will woke sluggishly, his neck sore from sleeping against a tree. He shook Wesley awake and hoisted the kid into his arms. Wesley groaned, and Will muttered, “Nous aurons de la nourriture aujourd'hui, Wessy. Je promets. Juste un peu plus loin.”

The two started a weary walk over the hills of France. When they heard that both the Weygard line and the Maginot line had fallen, Will knew he had to get Wesley out of the city. He and a few others who had children from America knew that their presence in Paris when the Germans arrived could make the war even worse.

The operation to sneak American soldiers and nurses into the war had produced a few children that had been hidden in Paris. Will and his neighbors had fled in the night from the city, trying to make for Switzerland. Their numbers had dwindled as they died from starvation, mines, and wolves. Will felt guilt beyond compare that his boy had seen so much at such a young age.

The two crested a hill and found a bunker, a forest stretching beyond. From their location, Will could see scattered bodies by a truck outside, blood staining the ground. The place reeked of death, but Will knew that bunkers like this were the ones on the Maginot line. In spite of being tired, hungry, and hopeless, Will felt a smile break across his face. Maginot bunkers had food.

He hoisted Wesley into his arms and said, “Ferme les yeux, mon garçon.” While Wesley had witnessed people he had been growing up around die, Will did not want him to see the horrors of war. Wesley pressed his face into Will’s shoulder as Will carried him to the entrance of the bunker.

He looked over the bodies by the truck. They were all nurses, except for one black man in a uniform. Their bodies were mangled and bloody, and Will saw a crater in the ground nearby that explained why. One woman was draped on the truck, her red hair matted with blood and what looked like pieces of her brain where her head had slammed into the truck. She had broken glasses dangling from her face, the glass impaled in her wrist. There was a bloody photo sticking out of her pocket, and shrapnel was embedded in her waist, soaking her white dress a deep, burning crimson.

Will swallowed rising bile in his throat as he entered the bunker and put Wesley down. No matter how many times he had seen bomb victims, it never got easier. He said to Wesley, “Je vais chercher de la nourriture. Restez ici, il pourrait y avoir des pièges.” Wesley nodded and Will ruffled his hair as he entered the bunker slowly, raising his shirt to cover his nose.

He first found a control room with a smashed radio and chairs in disarray, soldiers slumped on them dead. The radio was silver and had the word “DA1A” etched into its side, obviously by hand. A balding man with a ring of grey hair and a Commandant’s uniform was slumped on the chair closest to it. Will realized it was supposed to say “Data” and smiled, his parched lips cracking and stinging. He stopped smiling to ease the pain, further realizing that with the radio so damaged, they could not get help.

He turned down a hallway and immediately noticed that it rank with stale blood and rotting flesh. He choked on the air and forged forward, the stench enough to make his eyes burn with tears as he looked in any of the rooms for food. Eventually, he passed the room the smell was emanating from.

The hospital was crowded with bodies, and he didn’t even want to see what atrocities he’d find. He was about to move on when a glint of gold caught his eye. The man closest to the door was wearing a watch around his wrist. Will stepped even closer, curious. The man had a broken leg that nauseated Will to even look at, so he tried to keep his vision slowly on the man’s wrist. He lifted the wrist up and looked at it.

The watch that he had made for Beverly circled the man’s wrist, dented and bloodstained. He rotated the head of the watch to look on the underside to check. Sure enough, a small flower was carved into the underside of the watch. He let the man’s wrist drop and stumbled out of the hospital when he remembered the redhead he had seen on the truck.

It had to be Beverly. He collapsed against the wall. Wesley was mere meters away from his real mother, who had been destroyed in a war that she didn’t even deserve to be in. He let tears fall for the first time in a while, the salt stinging his dehydrated lips. He never thought he’d see Beverly again, even though she had promised to come get Wesley when war ended. He sobbed louder when he heard an explosion.

He scrambled to his feet.  _ Wesley.  _ He ran through the bunker as fast as he could, tracing his steps back to the entrance. Wesley was gone. His stomach sank as he made his way more carefully through the other half of the bunker, looking for trip wires. 

He turned a corner and fell to the ground in shock, his mouth open. A trip wire lay across the small hallway he was in, in the corner of the bunker. A hole had been ripped through the concrete, and the surrounding walls were painted in the reds, pinks, and browns of what remained of Wesley. He looked at the stained walls and floor, sobbing openly and heaving. His chest and throat hurt from crying.

He managed to scooch over to the wall, unable to tear his eyes away from the trap that had massacred his little boy. He sobbed at the fact that just outside, his mother had been claimed in just as brutal of a way. He sobbed at the fact that children like Wesley had been taken away just as he had on their journey across France. He knew how close the Maginot line was to Switzerland. They could have done it.

He slammed his fist into the ground. Hitler wanted to rule Europe, but at what cost? Could he see the little boys and girls blown apart in the fields and cities, the men and women torn open by his bombs, the fields and forests of beautiful France turned into wastelands of bombed ground and bodies, souls flooding heaven in a cacophony that not even the angels could stand. 

He had tried to protect one desperate woman’s son, and now both of their bodies surrounded him, blood dripping from the ceiling and pattering to ground, the steady rhythm matching his heartbeat pounding in his ears. He hadn’t joined the French Army for this very reason-he knew he couldn’t protect people.

His guilt at lying to Beverly about being able to keep a boy like Wesley safe filled his head with a ringing as his sobs continued, echoing in the empty concrete halls that mirrored the empty sense of satisfaction any German could have at winning a war with that high of a price.

**Author's Note:**

> 5 songs I listened to while I wrote:
> 
> get well soon by Ariana Grande  
> Mary by Big Thief  
> Fix You by Coldplay  
> Arms Unfolding by dodie  
> Liability by Lorde


End file.
